Sinéad Cusack and Clare Higgins to Star in U.K. Premiere of Other Desert Cities at London's Old Vic

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24 Jan 2014

Sinéad Cusack and Clare Higgins, respectively, two-time and one-time Tony nominees for appearances on Broadway, will star in the U.K. premiere of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities, which, as previously announced, begins performances March 13 prior to an official opening March 24 at London's Old Vic Theatre, for a run that is booking through May 24.

They will play sisters Polly Wyeth and Silda Grauman, respectively, roles originated at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in 2011 by Stockard Channing and Linda Lavin, respectively, with the latter replaced by Judith Light when the play transferred to Broadway's Booth Theatre later that year.

In the play, Brooke Wyeth returns to the family home in Palm Springs for the first time in six years with some incendiary news for her Republican parents Polly and Lyman, her brother Trip and her recovering alcoholic Aunt Silda. She is about to publish a memoir about her family, exposing a pivotal moment in their painful and explosive past, her actions threatening to push fractured family relations to a point beyond repair.

Cusack, who has been seen on Broadway in Much Ado About Nothing for the RSC in 1984 and Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll in 2005 (for both of which she received Tony nominations), as well as an RSC production of Cyrano de Bergerac, was last seen at the Old Vic in Sam Mendes' Bridge Project productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale that both also played at BAM. Other recent stage work includes Juno and the Paycock (National and Abbey Theatre, Dublin) and The Birds (Gate, Dublin). Film credits include "The Wrath of the Titans," "Eastern Promises," "V for Vendetta" and "I Capture the Castle," and is well known to British television audiences for her roles in "A Room With A View" (ITV), the final series of "Poirot" (ITV) and "North and South" (BBC).

Higgins, who was Tony-nominated for reprising her National Theatre performance in the Broadway transfer of Vincent in Brixton in 2003, has won Olivier Awards for that play and Sweet Bird of Youth, also at the National, as well as Hecuba at the Donmar Warehouse. Other theatre includes Jocasta in Jonathan Kent's production of Oedipus opposite Ralph Fiennes (National), Gertrude in Hamlet with Rory Kinnear (National), Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman (Lyric), The Night of the Iguana (Lyric), The Fever (Royal Court), Phaedra (Donmar) and Mrs. Klein (Almeida).